Overtime Pay is in jeopardy in the US

Nurses Activism

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Action Alert: Overtime Pay in Jeopardy!

Everyone deserves to be paid fairly for their work. Yet recently introduced federal legislation allows employers to offer compensatory time off to workers in place of normal time-and-a-half overtime pay. H.R. 1119 and S.317 would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to change the job description and duties, income limits and other qualifications for overtime pay protections. These proposed changes would threaten workers with unpredictable work schedules and no monetary compensation for any extra hours worked. Details and more info at:

http://www.nysna.org/programs/leg/alert_2.htm

One would think so. What with logic being what it is and all. But it just doesnt turn out that way in our work world. If nurses expressing their disapproval ever moved hospital administrators to take positive action, we wouldnt have mandatory ot or unsafe staffing levels. Hundreds of thousands of nurses have been expressing their disapproval of those loud & clear all over the country. Yet most hospitals are resisting hearing it & will not recognize that fixing those things would be incentive enough to get many nurses back working for them --- and then they wouldnt have to worry about paying OT cause theyd have enough staff. Maybe one day our employers everywhere might actually pay attention to what nurses disapprove of, but it doesnt look like it going to be happening anytime soon.

I read this bill as being an option and voluntary rather than mandatory. In the end, either your employer pays well or it doesn't care enough to do so. No matter what laws are in place or what compensation methods they use, the bottom line is the bottom line. Nurses are a necessary evil they have to pay to keep their business running in the black.

Specializes in Hospice, corrections, psychiatry, rehab, LTC.

You can bet, though, that if it costs less money they will do it. Hospital administrators can't see past the bottom line.

Originally posted by glcas

The taxes I pay are supporting too many patients who complain that 'their' insurance (translation: government provided ) is paying for my salary, and I don't give them everything they demand.

Just curious - why are you a nurse?

It must not be the "caring for patients" since your signature indicates that you don't think certain patients deserve the care. And it must not be for the pay and hours since you seem to think it's perfectly acceptable for a hospital to want to max out your hours and give you as little pay as possible.

Anyway...

If it is an "option" and "not mandatory," and "the bottom line is the bottom line," and the hospital is given the option to save more money, what do you think they will go for? Particularly if all the hospitals in a region do the same thing? Then a nurse might say, "I'm not going to agree to this," but if all the other hospitals in town hold the same policy, does the nurse really have a choice? It's either take the job and put up with the B.S., or just be out of work.

But then they'd probably have to rely on government insurance...and have to be "cared for" by a nurse who thinks they don't deserve care.

What kind of choice is that?

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